Trying to clear up doubts surrounding the policies used to reduce poverty, Marcos Peña President of the Minister’s Cabinet claimed zero poverty goals are a ‘goal as a society’.

“Zero poverty”, a flagship proposal of Macri’s presidential campaign was seriously effective during the elections. Promising to eradicate poverty completely through housing subsidies, a wider education platform and incentivizing entrepreneurship was, rather predictably, a very popular move.

Now that Macri stands in power, “zero poverty” has to move beyond being a simple proposal, and must shift into action.Right now, the Macri administration appears to be setting the stage for it, correcting macroeconomic imbalances, fighting inflation and refilling the treasuries. Despite reasonable progress, however, a voice from inside the government has already shot down the ambition of the zero poverty plans.

Marcos Peña, President of the Minister’s Cabinet spoke bluntly of the zero poverty program, assuring that it is “unachievable”. He argued that it instead has to do with an objective that Argentina most hold always in its sight, a “goal as a society”.

Still, he did declare that reducing poverty is a top priority for the government, despite them being keenly aware that zero poverty is unfeasible in the near future, especially when considering that there are over 12 million Argentinians living in poverty.

Understandably, the declaration has not sinked in well with the public. There appears to be a general feeling of betrayal among supporters, who heard Macri go on incessantly about zero poverty only to hear now that the policies which were so key to garner support are being written off as impossible.

This should not bode well for President Macri’s popularity, which has been dwindling throughout the year due to the radical reforms that he has put in place to get the economy back on track. Tax increases and foreclosures have caused discontent among the population, which now has to stomach the fact that what they felt was promised to them during the campaign might in fact never get done.